


Such Mortal Drugs

by Marguerite



Category: The West Wing
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-03-16
Updated: 2009-03-16
Packaged: 2019-05-30 17:13:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,214
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15101318
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Marguerite/pseuds/Marguerite
Summary: "It needs to be the last, and I mean the absolute last, resort." Talking heads, sad subject.





	Such Mortal Drugs

**Author's Note:**

> A copy of this work was once archived at National Library, a part of the [ West Wing Fanfiction Central](https://fanlore.org/wiki/West_Wing_Fanfiction_Central), a West Wing fanfiction archive. More information about the Open Doors approved archive move can be found in the [announcement post](http://archiveofourown.org/admin_posts/8325).

WARNING: If you oppose legal right-to-die measures for the terminally ill, then  
please use the delete key.

CJ comes to the conclusion that if the senior staff were animals, Josh would be a sheepdog. Two hours of grooming wouldn't make a difference - he'd still be rumpled and windblown and a million other things. He manages to be annoyingly endearing whether he's in a tuxedo or in the jeans and black sweater he's poured himself into at this ungodly hour of the morning.

"When we get out of here," Josh says around a yawn as he helps himself to one of the danishes on Leo's conference table, "I am never, ever, ever getting out of bed at five in the morning on a Sunday again."

"Sometimes I wonder if we'll ever really get out of here." CJ can control her voice, can portray exhaustion and lethargy, lulling Josh into relaxing enough so she can snatch his pastry away before he has a chance to take a bite.

His sleep-heavy eyes open wider. "The hell?"

"It was the last cheese one. You know I love the cheese ones." It smells heavenly, like real butter, confectioner's sugar, and cream cheese that didn't come in a grocery store brick.

Josh's voice squeaks when he's indignant. "You could get to Senior Staff early!"

"You could quit sneaking the good danishes out from under our noses, Josh! Honest to God, you're going to have a spare tire the size of Detroit."

"As opposed to his ego, which is merely the size of several small Pacific Islands?" This insult is hurled by Toby, scarcely breaking his stride as he walks past CJ and takes the cheese danish out of her slim fingers.

Bastard.

She turns a steely glare on him. "Ha, ha, ha."

"You want a piece of this?" Toby asks, his dark eyes twinkling as he waves his prize under CJ's nose. "You wanna piece o'dis?"

"Oh, man, this is just too good," Josh chuckles, leaning against the door frame to watch two members of the President's inner circle fight over what is now a well-handled and somewhat limp piece of pastry.

"C'mon, Toby, I went to a lot of trouble, you know, stealing it from Josh and all."

"I'm going to make you beg for it, CJ," Toby murmurs just as Sam walks into the room.

Everyone freezes. Sam's mouth hangs open, eyes saucer-wide behind his glasses. Toby stands with the danish dangling from his fingers, CJ is pouting at him, and Josh's face is scarlet as he struggles to restrain his laughter.

"I gotta come to Senior Staff earlier," Sam mutters. He's cute early in the morning, with sleep clinging to the corners of his eyes and a couple of locks of black hair not wanting to go the same direction as the others. He's cute most of the time, but CJ's usually too busy and tired to notice.

Everyone dissolves into helpless mirth. Toby breaks the cheese danish in half and, with a magnanimous flourish, gives CJ the part with the most filling. It's a little the worse for wear yet it still smells sweet, although with a hint of Toby-fragrance. Pencils and coffee.

"I'm glad to see you're enjoying yourselves," Leo says as he strides in with Margaret right behind him. "It may be the last time for the foreseeable future."

"Way to suck the joy out of my day," Josh comments under his breath.

"I heard that," Leo snaps, and Josh lowers his head. "Anyway, we've got a thing and the President's asking for as many voices - hopefully with brains attached - on the matter as possible."

"What is it?" Toby. Doom-laden.

"It seems that the good people of The Organization For Life have started beating drums over Oregon's physician-assisted suicide statute. They're demanding action from the Federal Government to overturn the law."

"On what grounds?" Sam asks, his pencil pointed over the paper.

"That the distribution of the medications involved is in violation of FDA standards. But what they're really spoiling for is a position from the White House on the matter."

Toby scratches his chin beneath the beard. CJ can hear Toby's thumbnail rasping on the soft, vulnerable flesh beneath. "What is the President's position?"

"He's...conflicted," Leo says, looking Toby straight in the eye as if daring him to make a comment.

"And he's looking to us to help untangle that conflict?" CJ's eyes widen. "Has he ever known us to agree on anything other than 'our salaries suck?'"

As undisturbed as the perfectly-pressed folds of his shirt, Leo continues. "So during the day you'll talk amongst yourselves and the President will want to see you at some point."

"When?" Josh inhales the word as he rubs the small of his back with one hand. Sam glances at him, brow furrowed.

"When he gets back. From church." Leo takes his seat behind the desk, looking up at the staff from over his glasses. "Guys, let's get this done sooner rather than later."

"Thank you, Leo," Sam says. He gives Josh a gentle prod to get him moving, CJ and Toby following behind. "Do we have memos, briefing books, anything on this?"

"Probably, but that's not the point," CJ says, crisp and efficient as she leads the group down the hall. "He wants to know what we think, as people, not what information we can spout off after reading memos. There won't be a quiz."

"That's what you think," Josh says glumly.

"Look, let's give it some thought and meet in my office in, say, twenty minutes?"

"Done," Sam declares, breaking away from the group and heading for the stairs.

Josh makes a quiet departure, not saying anything, simply turning away and walking toward his office. CJ wonders if she should call Donna and get her in today, then remembers that Josh gave Donna three days off so she could see her sister's new baby.

"Where's Donna?" Toby Ziegler, mind-reader, his card should say.

"Madison. Her sister had a baby."

Toby scrunches up his face. "Didn't her sister have a baby already?"

"Yes, Toby - sometimes families want more than one. It's been known to happen. That would explain you being here, after all."

"Ah," is all Toby says, and CJ knows he's back to thinking about whatever he was thinking about when Josh walked away from them. He follows her into her office and sits down on the sofa. He leans forward with his hands clasped, looking at his thumbs.

"So we're supposed to give a rational opinion to the President later today about suicide." The words are dry in CJ's throat, sharp.

"Well, I think we universally agree that suicide is generally not the best thing in the world. We're talking about people being given a choice when to end a life that's become nothing more than pointless suffering."

Toby's dressed all in black today, sober polo shirt and slacks, black socks, black loafers, as if he were on the way to a coffeehouse in the sixties. CJ looks down at her feet. She's wearing cream-colored sandals and her toenails are an intense geranium red, the brightest color in the room.

"But is it really something we can get behind, asking a physician to take a life?"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa." Toby puts his hand out in the universal 'stop' gesture. "That sounds like Mary Marsh on abortion."

"This isn't the same thing."

"Mary would say it was."

"Well, she's wrong, and she can just stay over...there...someplace, out of this discussion, okay?"

Those intense eyes scan her, reading her like a headline. "Okay, then. And I do see your point about making this yet another requirement heaped on doctors by the government. But what about a doctor who truly understands his patient's--"

"Or her patient's," CJ puts in, pro forma but also because she loves watching Toby squirm as he tries to use gender-neutral language.

"His-slash-her patient's suffering," Toby growls, rolling his eyes, "and has gone through his-slash-her entire arsenal of traditional medicines and non-traditional ones as well, and now wants to let the patient be freed of the horror his...or her...life has become."

"Isn't that in violation of the Hippocratic oath - 'above all, do no damage?'"

"CJ, listen." Toby gets up and paces the room. Even with his back turned to her, she knows exactly what his face looks like. "My brother David's wife, Joyce, developed a brain tumor. Cancer spread to every inch of her body, spread like wildfire. She couldn't breathe without a machine. If David touched her she'd scream in pain. She was a mass of tumors but every day was still precious to her because she couldn't bear the thought of not being a part of the world anymore. She wasn't ready to die. She had David. She had three kids, CJ. Three kids." 

CJ lowers her head. She knows about this - she still has his letters in a shoebox. She never loved him more than when he poured his heart out to her about those months. "That's not really making your argument, Toby."

"But there came a time when she knew that it was over, that she really didn't have any reason to fight anymore, and she begged us to let it end. To make it end, if we had to. We talked about it in the abstract, David and I, and then later our sisters joined in and the conversations became less abstract. We argued about everything from 'pikuach nefesh' to how much jail time we were willing to serve. One night we were whispering about it in the hospital because we thought she was sleeping."

CJ can sense where this is headed. She debates whether to cross the room, cross the line, and touch him while he finishes, but he turns to face her and the look on his face tells her to stand still.

"She heard us. She said she could never, never ask us to do this, so she was going to have to do it herself. She stopped eating, refused all treatment, and it took...days." His eyes are wild, as if he is reliving the grief again in the depths of his heart. "It took days," he repeats. "The doctor apologized to us the entire time. He said if they'd only let him, he could put extra morphine into her IV line and she'd be able to go peacefully and on her own terms rather than face the endless pain. It was the pain that killed her, really, as much as the cancer. And it was awful, CJ. It's not what we wanted for her, and in the  
end it wasn't what she wanted for herself, either."

It's going to be awful for her father, as well. His mind will contract and contract, squeezing out his education and his memory before finally taking everything that made him Jack Cregg and reducing it to a vacuum. She knows it will be awful, and she knows that Toby knows, and she wishes he would hold her so that she could cry.

But they have this thing they have to do.

She shifts and sighs, rubbing the back of her neck. "What would you want for yourself, Toby, if something like that were to happen to you? Would you want to go quickly?"

"No, I think I would prefer to linger and be a burden to my loved ones." He gives her that sardonic grin, the one that makes her want to kiss it right off his lips.

"As if you'd have any loved ones," CJ says, and instantly regrets it because she's wounded him, gone beyond banter into something they both have reason to fear. "Besides me," she whispers, wanting to make it better.

Toby smiles and this time it's for real. "So if something happened to me and I was suffering, would you let me sign the papers?"

She tries not to think of her father. "I don't think I could stop you, Toby."

Nodding, Toby comes a little nearer, closing both the physical and metaphorical distance between them. "What if I couldn't sign? What if there was no brain function but my body was alive, or if I could think but couldn't move?"

Her whole body quakes. Uncontrollable. She's going to cry, damn it. "Toby..."

Another step forward, and another, and he's close enough for her to feel the warmth from his body but it doesn't quell the tremors. "CJ, it's not outside the realm of possibility that you'll be the only person around when I start to shuffle off the mortal coil. And I have to know - would you try to keep me here even though I wanted to go?"

He dissolves in her tear-blurred vision: one Toby, ten Tobies, watercolor Tobies in flesh and black, and she takes in a gasping, painful breath as she nods her head. "I don't think I could...let you go. I know it's selfish..."

She doesn't know how her cheek came to rest on Toby's shirt, but there it is, and his hand is in her hair. She looks up at him, glad that she can't quite see the details of his expression. "Would you, if it were me?"

His voice is a low rumble and he pauses between words. "It would be hard. But I'd do it. For you. I'd let you go. I'd be right there with you. I wouldn't make you do it alone."

The warm safety of his embrace is all that holds her together. She can't look at him anymore, can't say much, but she mumbles something into his shirt that's just for now. Just for this moment.

"Toby?" His arms tighten around her in a silent response. "Don't let go."

***

Sam knows where he can find Ainsley, knows that she'll give him the argument that will help him formulate an opinion on a subject he really hasn't thought about before now. He also knows that she'll be in her office - a newer, less gloomy space than the original - because she always comes in early on Sundays.

"Hey, Sam," Ainsley drawls when Sam knocks on the door and leans in, smiling at her. "What on earth are you doing here at six on a Sunday?"

"I was summoned. You?"

He enjoys the way her skin glows when she blushes. "I...like it here."

"Like it because you like it, or like it because it's easier to plot the overthrow of the government from inside the building?" Sam asks as he lowers himself into a chair. His posture has never been very good around Ainsley.

"Like it because...this is going to sound utterly vapid."

He smiles. "Only you could put yourself down and use the phrase 'utterly vapid' at the same time."

"I like it because it's the White House. I mean, I get up in the morning and I get to go to the White House, and I never got over that feeling." She tilts her head, her long, smooth hair flowing over one shoulder as she regards Sam with amusement in her eyes before turning to whatever work she was doing. "You're not going to laugh at me?"

"Hardly." He slouches even further in the overstuffed chair, his lean body twisting into a position only he could find comfortable. "I admire you for still feeling that way. For the rest of us...it's kind of worn off."

"That's because you're all idealist liberals who can't bear to have a dream shattered here and there," she replies mildly, not looking up from her laptop. It's only the ensuing silence that seems to interest her, drawing her gaze from the screen to Sam's face. "Insert witty repartee here, Sam."

"Yeah. Sorry." He takes his glasses off, folds them up, and fishes for a shirt pocket that would be there if he were dressed for business, but there's no home for glasses in his navy-blue sweater. Scowling, he reaches over and rests them on Ainsley's desk. It's like planting a flag in foreign soil.

Ainsley doesn't look up as she types something else. "Not that I don't enjoy the pleasure of your company, particularly when you're at a loss for words, but is there some reason--"

"Oregon's assisted-suicide statute is being attacked by the O.F.L."

"Because dispensing drugs in a manner inconsistent with their beneficial values is a violation of the F.D.A. rules?" Ainsley asks, folding up the laptop with a brisk snap.

He's surprised that she's on top of this, then not surprised, because after all, her party would be salivating for a Presidential response they could bat around. "Exactly. And Leo says the President wants to take our temperature on this, so I came to you."

"To me."

"Yes."

"For an opinion."

He sees it coming, as if they're playing tennis and he's feeding her a lob. "Yes."

"For my decidedly Republican opinion."

Here it comes. "Yes."

"Then I think the members of O.F.L. are out of their tiny little minds and they need to let physicians dispense drugs for whatever purposes they think are legitimate."

Sam spends a few seconds trying to merge the words and Ainsley's voice together, gives up, and shakes his head. "Excuse me?"

"Sam, that's my internal argument. I don't think there's a more fundamental right than the right to decide when your own life isn't worth living anymore. However--"

"Aha!"

She sighs and shakes her head. "However, I'm worried about the potential for abuse."

"As in, doctors killing off patients who don't pay their bills on time?"

"God, Sam, no, that's not what I mean at all!" Her voice rises, pitch and volume, even the speed, all increasing. "Here's a scenario for you. Someone's father is dying of...let's say cancer, since that's pretty common. It's slow and it's painful. Death is inevitable. But it's going to take years, most of which will be spent in the hospital."

Sam shudders, thinking of his parents and their endless cigarettes. He pictures them hooked up to respirators and tubes, pictures himself at their bedsides, all as if it were happening right now. His eyes sting, his throat aches, and he has trouble listening as Ainsley continues.

"So this family that used to be affluent is now hemorrhaging money. Thousands of dollars a week. And then one day the mother says to the father that their daughter's wedding has to be called off because they can't afford it. Two months later, neither of the children can go to college. And all the while the father's only getting worse, slowly, inexorably. Then, finally, the mother says: 'My darling husband, there's an honorable way out,' and she brings it up every day until the father finally consents."

"That sounds," Sam says while trying to even out his breathing, "more like a scenario to prove that we have to overhaul the nation's health care system so that families don't have to make that kind of choice." 

"I don't disagree with you," Ainsley replies, and her voice is so quiet and deep that Sam wonders what personal connection she may have to the argument. "But I think the potential for abuse is very, very high, and that's something you need to take into consideration. I don't think we need to make patricide, or any other family permutation, into something that's sanctioned by the federal government."

He doesn't argue, just sits and lets his eyes drift down the silk waves of her hair, drowning in them for a few moments while he ponders. "I think that's a valid concern."

Ainsley threw her hands in the air in a mock gesture of amazement. "Well, call CJ and get the press corps down here, because this is a first." They share a laugh, something they don't get to do much anymore. "I'm interested in hearing your opinion, Sam."

"This is the weird thing," he begins, and he realizes that he's clutching the arms of the chair rather tightly. "I don't really have an opinion. I mean, I just haven't given the matter much thought." And he hasn't. The Seaborns are famously - almost insolently - healthy, his grandparents still remarkably agile, his parents strong enough to maintain an extraordinary level of bitterness toward one another. "I suppose that on the surface, I think that people should be allowed to determine what happens to their bodies. But I also wonder if it's right to go to another person and say, 'Hey, look, you've got all this medical  
expertise - so what would kill me, and would you mind doing the job yourself?' That's a terrible thing to ask."

"I see both your points." Ainsley stands up and stretches, showing a bit of pale skin at her waist where the Smith sweatshirt and the black jeans suddenly fail to meet. "And I think I need refueling for the debate. Want to go to the Mess?"

"There's no one there," Sam says, blinking at her, wondering how that much food gets processed in her little body, how fast and hot her metabolism must run. 

"I have something you don't have," Ainsley declares in a soprano sing-song.

"Yes, I'd imagine there are several...things..."

She leans over and cuffs him, hard, on the upper arm, ignoring his sharp-voiced protest. "Sam, I have a key."

"Key."

"To the kitchen. Anything we want, it's ours."

"How did you get that?"

"They got tired of my continual complaining and said that if I wanted Fresca, or grits, or banana and peanut butter sandwiches, I could very well come down and take care of them myself."

He can imagine her batting her eyelashes and getting her way - or standing up to the kitchen staff and making a list of demands. Or some combination. But his stomach rumbles, on cue, and he smiles up at her. "Banana and peanut butter sandwiches?"

"Nectar of the gods. C'mon." She gives him her hand, warm and surprisingly strong, and pulls him up.

***

Josh leans against Carol's desk, staring at the closed door to CJ's office. He can hear the low buzz of conversation in three-part harmony: Toby's baritone, Sam's tenor, CJ's alto. He's supposed to be at this meeting. He can't be at this meeting.

His slim fingers tap at a spot on his sternum, then rub downward and back up again. Even now, two years later, the almost-sensation still intrigues him. Abbey had said that he will probably never have much feeling there. A numb-line. But what's beneath that line was never numb and today is aching in a way he thought he'd forgotten.

***

Shallow breaths, sending fiery tendrils through his body. Pain, oh, God, the pain, and the confusion, and the shadowy figures wandering in and out, doing things to him. Nameless, faceless "theys," forcing him up from the cotton-wool sleep he craves. Poke, prod, examine, measure. Yank tubes out of holes and punch him full of new ones.

Donna's voice. "Please, can't you do something?"

Mom, crying. One of the theys ushers her out of the room, and then it's just Donna. Not-Donna, because the voice is wrong. And the words are wrong. Pleading. Begging.

One of the theys: "It's not uncommon for trauma victims to imagine that they're in more pain than they're really in."

More pain, indeed, and more indignity as fluid goes out of a tube between his legs. Even that is done by external means. Damn.

"Look, I'll sign anything, I'll do anything!" Can't be Donna, who would have said "Imagine this!" and kicked the they in the groin.

What's left of his heart seizes up, making the monitors bleat faster and drown out the they's next words. Something on his chest - cold metal, not helping - and the pain's still there but he can't feel Donna anymore.

He waits to float away. Waits to look down on his shell from a curiously detached "above." Surely this is the end. Surely. Please.

Warm, dry hand on his forehead. Gravelly voice. Exhausted voice. Toby.

"I don't give a damn that it's three in the morning - get the doctor on the phone NOW." Then softer, with breath brushing his cheek. "Hold on, Josh. You're going to be okay."

Liar. Toby. Liar. Gonna die. Has to open his eyes, but the light's hot like lead in the chest. Has to reach...tubes...wires...find Toby's wrist and pull.

"It's over." His voice creaks like two strips of dried leather rubbing against one another.

"What?" Shocked. Beyond shocked.

"Toby." Tongue against lips cracked and raw from fourteen hours of intubation. Hiss. New pain, sharp. Blink sweat out of eyes. Toby's face is white and his eyes are black and there's no other color in this world that's ending. Please. It has to be ending. "Make it stop."

Toby grips his arm. Hurts. Good hurt. "There's a doctor calling in new pain meds, Josh, it'll be just a minute more. Hang on. It's going to be okay."

"Let me die."

"What did he say?" Donna, choking back sobs.

Don't cry, Donna. It's almost over.

"He's delirious," Toby says too quickly for Donna to believe, and she's crying again.

"Not," Josh chokes out. "I know." Coughing sends rockets off in his chest. "Let me die."

There's new light. A halo around Toby, or misery, or something. A they comes in and croons apologetically at Josh as she injects something into his IV bag. It's something warm, soothing, letting waves of comfort wash him out to sea. 

***

The first thing Toby sees as he leaves CJ's office is Josh, who never made it inside for the meeting. Josh blinks, startled, looking as if he's just awakened from a nightmare. Toby's pretty sure he knows exactly which nightmare would be conjured up today. Sam holds the door for CJ and the four of them start walking together.

CJ cocks her head at Josh. "You didn't pick up when I called."

Josh's voice is rusty. "I forgot to get off of voice mail."

Toby slows his steps so that CJ and Sam move ahead. Josh won't look at him. "I can have someone page you, get you out of there," Toby says under his breath.

"Nah. I'm good."

"Josh," he says, sighing because he'd rather scream. "Look, tell him, or don't tell him, but this is not exactly a stupid man you're going to be talking to."

They pause, waiting for Sam and CJ to round the corner. There's no one in the bullpen but they keep their voices low anyway. "I'm not going to tell him. Look, it's fine. It's not a problem."

"You've locked yourself up in your office the whole damn day. You didn’t answer the phone."

"I didn't know it was set to voice mail!" Josh's voice is too high.

Unconvinced, Toby shakes his head. "It's okay to take a few seconds before the meeting to pull him aside. All you have to say is, 'Mr. President, this is a little too personal for me to give an unbiased opinion,' and you're done."

"Yeah, right." Josh runs his hands through his hair until he looks like a grouchy, sarcastic Einstein. "That's exactly what I should do. Thanks for the advice."

"I know it's hard for you to talk about what happened that night." He takes a beat, breathes for a few seconds. "It's hard for me. I mean, we've never even talked about it between ourselves."

They hadn't, but for weeks afterwards Toby had scoured the Constitution for ways of getting back at the bastards who had done this, who had put Josh in a place where all he wanted was to die. Toby had gone to sleep with Josh's words in his ears and had woken to the sound of his own harsh breathing because his dreams were full of Rosslyn, gunshots, and heart monitors. And Josh's rasping voice. 

Let me die.

Let me die.

Josh pulls away, but not fast enough to keep Toby from seeing the humiliation in Josh's eyes at the recollection of that horrible conversation. His impudent swagger is gone and he looks older than Leo. He doesn't look at Toby even though they travel side by side.

***

Half an hour later, Josh is sitting on one of the little chairs in the Oval Office. His body is drawn like a fist against the uncontrollable pounding of his heart. CJ and Leo sit in the loveseat next to him with Toby and Sam opposite them. The President is in the other chair, so when Josh looks up he sees the intelligent countenance of Josiah Bartlet and when he looks down he sees the Presidential seal. Devil and deep blue sea.

"Josh?" Leo prompts, and Josh turns his face toward him.

"I don't really have anything to add," he whispers, remembering a time when he had shouted his mangled thoughts to the heavens in this very room. "I'm sorry, I've given it a lot of time, but..." He cuts himself off, closing his eyes as he tries to remember how to breathe.

"Josh, if you have a difference of opinion from the other members of the staff,  
then we'd really like to hear it," Bartlet coaxes. "That's why I bring in the smart ones, so I can get as great a variety as possible. It doesn't matter if they don't line up with what you've heard so far."

Josh, who hasn't heard anything so far, casts a sidelong glance at Toby. Get me out of this. Stall. Something.

"While he's thinking, sir," Toby says, taking up the slack without missing a beat, "I'd like to revisit the problems we're likely to have with the Catholic Church. Their stance against euthanasia, even in the most horrific circumstances, is plain and irrevocable. You're one of the most visible members of the Church, Mr. President - don't you think we need to have answers for them about why you oppose the taking of unborn life but support the loss of...born life?"

Bartlet lets out a sigh. "I've spent a lot of time in contemplation - I've called priests and bishops and cardinals, and we've hashed it out ad nauseam. I disagree with the Church on a number of issues, and this happens to be one of them."

"I'm a long way from catechism class, Mr. President," CJ says, leaning back and crossing her legs, "but I'm pretty sure it's possible that there might be some interesting developments for you in the Hereafter because of this." 

"I'm sure there will be," Bartlet says, matter-of-fact, a touch of humor in his voice despite the subject. "So be it. If the Church's hierarchy calls me on this, then I'll say that it's a matter of being able to decide for oneself rather than have the decision made externally without consulting the person - born or unborn."

Josh feels CJ stiffen and Toby gives her a slight shake of the head, telegraphing that now is not the time to start this argument. Besides, the President has been only momentarily distracted and is returning to his original subject.

"Josh, we still haven't heard from you," he says, leaning toward Josh's chair.

"Sir, I..." Josh rubs his eyes with his knuckles, then flings his hands outward. They tremble so he folds them in his lap. He looks down and away. Breathes. Whispers. "I'm not your guy."

There's a beat while Bartlet looks at Toby, then his face registers comprehension and sorrow in equal parts. He nods, silent and composed, and leans away from Josh to offer him what privacy he can.

Sam, who bears the curse of understanding what Leo and CJ do not, presses his lips together and looks up at the ceiling. His right hand moves in the air as if he's writing with an invisible pen. "So we need safeguards in place," he says, slowly at first, then picking up speed. "We need to find a way to ensure that only patients who are terminally ill or have no hope of regaining any quality of life can use the system. And we need to be careful that the family can'toverride the patient's wishes one way or the other."

"Something along those lines," Josh says, his voice strengthening. He looks at Sam and sees something that reminds him of their reckless walk through a Manhattan thunderstorm, something he hasn't seen since Sam missed all the signals that wretched Christmas. "I can't figure out what kind of wording we could possibly use. But it needs to be the last, and I mean the absolute last, resort. Something that even the most religious people would recognize as being a sign that a life has become unbearable, even if they can't agree with the act itself."

"Okay, that's something I can agree with," the President says. "This whole thing boils down to recognizing when a life should be allowed to end with dignity and grace."

Josh nods. "Something for when the body is failing completely and there's no cure, no hope...for..." He glances at Toby, whose face is pale and taut, then at the President. Their eyes meet and the three men nod almost imperceptibly at one another. They know it's not abstract.

They know.

***

Abbey runs her fingers through the graying hair on her husband's chest. She knows his body as well as her own - better, in some ways. She knows the rhythms of him, the temperatures and the planes and valleys, The Topography of the President. It makes her smile and plant kisses along his collarbone. 

"What's that for?" he inquires, peering at her through his reading glasses.

"Oh, this and that." She settles down again, listening to his heartbeat and wondering why she expects his heart to be grander than any other man's. "What was the staff thing about this morning? I missed you at church."

He takes off his glasses and puts them aside along with the briefing memo he had been reading. "I was sitting right next to you at church."

"Your body was, but your mind was somewhere else entirely."

He deflates a little, sinks back into the pillows. "Yes. It was."

"Want to share?" She tries to keep it light, but she knows that whatever had Charlie on the phone at five in the morning probably was anything but light.

"The O.F.L.'s coming for the physician-assisted suicide statute in Oregon. I needed voices, Abbey."

Reflex. She stiffens, and his arms go around her. "I realize that I'm not currently a physician, but I'd think that you'd want to hear my opinion on the subject."

His sigh smells like toothpaste and the filling he got last week. "I know your opinion on the subject. We've talked about it more than once in the past eight years."

They have decided which devastating effects of M.S. will be bearable and which will not, and for what duration they will be endured. They have decided to let him say goodbye to the children and grandchildren without telling them anything of their plans. They have decided to do it by themselves, with her holding his hand as he gets his first taste of eternity with a priest's benediction still drying on his forehead.

She will not let herself cry tonight, will not let the mental image of herself administering the final injection take over her brain and her heart all at the same moment. Instead she snuggles into the cozy, familiar strength of Jed's arms. "I'll have to get my license back first," she warns him, meaning it as a joke.

"I have friends in high places," he answers as he nuzzles the sensitive spot at her temple. "And if that doesn't work, then my enemies in high places will be only too glad to give you the means to put an end to me."

It's a squeezing, heavy pain in her heart. She lifts her head and presses hard on his chest. "Dammit, Jed, it's not going to be like that!" Her thick hair falls into her face, a merciful velvet veil. She shudders when Jed pushes it aside, tender fingers tucking it behind her ears.

"I know. I know."

How can he know, how can he fathom what this act will do to her? It's a dreadful, unimaginable burden for a physician to take a life, no matter how much that life should end, and Abbey's burden is doubled because she adores him and God and her children in equal measure. How can he know that she dreads the syringe that will send him into peaceful slumber more than the hell she is certain will devour her when her own time comes? How can he know the fleeting but seductive temptation to produce a second dose to stop her own aching heart?

Jed's eyes are soft tonight, cloudy blue around shining black pupils, full of love, full of faith. She lets herself drift in them. She needs to feel alive, and so does he, and for those blissful minutes there's no clock. No disease. No clear liquid to perform an unclear task. And for now his heart still beats - brave, strong, and grand - against her cheek.

***  
END  
***  
With thanks to Erika, Maggie, Renee F., A.J., and the entire cast and crew of The West Thing for their support and cattle prods.

Feedback is welcome.


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